Comments4Kids: At the fireplace Blog: Autumn Colours

I commented on the blog of the students of Abanskaya school 3 in Russia. Their blog was suggested by Mr. Chamberlain on his class blog. The students created Autumn centerpieces out of food and found objects. They were pretty incredible and the class seems to do projects like this often. Very cool.

Comment4Kids: Mr. McClung's World: Teaching Tool: EarthPulse

I commented on Mr. McClung's blog today about a resource on the National Geographic website called EarthPulse. It was a very cool application. I looked around for a while and I plan to go back to learn some more. It's really my kind of site. You should check it out!

Practice

Comments4Kids: Katie's Blog

I commented on Katie's blog; she's in Mr. Toft's grade 5 class in Stittsville, Ontario, Canada. She likes to read more than computers and TV. I look forward to following her blog to see what she's learning in school.

GoogleDocs Presentation

Mr. McClung: What I've Learned This Year.

I just read Mr. McClung's post and found it to be very true. I enjoyed reading about a 1st year teacher's experience very much. He made a lot of valid points, including:

• to be an effective teacher you have to let your students/ audience direct what and how you teach
• being flexible and not sweating the small stuff is key
• keeping lines of communication with good teachers open is important, this can allow you to good, effective trade ideas
• ENCOURAGE your students to do better the next time when they fail at something
• and listen to your students.

I firmly believe that if a teacher knows his or her students well enough that teaching them will just be like second nature. The students will learn and grow without knowing it. Mr. McClung has excellent information and advice. His blog is a part of my PLN.

Michael Wesch: A Vision of Students Today

I would say this video accurately depicted my college experience by about 90%. The only thing that didn't really fit is the amount of time and energy put into Facebook and such by the students who were surveyed. Other than that it was pretty right on. I will be in a lot of debt by the time I graduate. Who knows if I will even find a job when I graduate. This post was informative and interesting but as a student myself... not surprising.

The Fischbowl: Is it Okay to be a Technilogically Illiterate Teacher?

I just read this post by Karl Fisch and found it very enlightening. I very much agree with Mr. Fisch's comparison of tech illiterate teachers now and illiterate teachers 30 years ago. Currently working teachers that are not tech literate need to seriously consider opening their interest to learning basic and new technology.

Comments4Kids: Moturoa's Blog

I just commented on Monturoa's blog after watching the video about the Appleby Country Fair. The fair looked like a lot of fun. Cool to see the similarities and differences of country fairs in our 'country' and their 'country'.

Langwitches Blog: Episode #19

In this podcast on the Langwitches.org website, two women, one of which is Melanie Holtsman, discuss Web 2.0 and Ideas for integrating technology in the classroom. This podcast was very informative for me and gave me quite a few ideas for when I become a teacher. One of the ideas she had was to have different designated children that would get to blog on the class blog about what they did and learned each day. I think that is an awesome idea and depending on the grade and the technologies available, more and more children can be a part of doing that. Its a great way for parents to keep track of what goes on in the classroom as well. Ms. Holtsman also brought up an excellent point about how blogging, podcasting and videocasting with people all over the world really helps children apply what they learn everyday to a larger audience because they know and they've spoken to people all over the world. Another great advantage of podcasting and videocasting for children that Ms. Holtsman brought up was that when creating these production children can become aware of what they portray when they present information. They can watch or listen to something that they made and say "I don't like this" or "I want to do this a different way". I look forward to subscribing to Langwitches RSS feed and learning all the great tips it was to offer.

EDM 310 Podcast: "Should All Teachers Be Tech Literate?"

I think last semester's videocast of "Should All Teachers Be Tech Literate?" was excellent. It has all of the things that I thought the previous podcasts I watched lacked. Even though this was a videocast I like that I could have listened to it only and I would have known what was going on, what was being discussed, etc.; because Dr. Strange laid it all out in the beginning. I would prefer a quiet place like this room when I do my podcast because background noise was very distracting for me in the podcasts I've seen. In my podcast I will certainly strive to make it as interesting as possible and try to keep people's attention with good points and entertaining conversation.

Education Podcasts

After watching all of the podcasts, most of which were about technology and podcasting/videocasting, I've gotten some good tips laid out in my head to follow when I make my podcast. For me, it was hard to pay attention to something that wasn't using my sense of sight to relay its message. However, I strongly agree with the idea that having children listen to podcasts instead something like a videocast would greatly strengthen their listening skills and heighten their levels of understanding in all other subjects. Most of the podcasts had really great ideas. From one perspective I like that the podcasts are like conversations but I think some of them would be easier to follow if they had more structure like a public speech. "Today we are going to talk about..." type stuff. Clearer transitions would be helpful. All of these points are ones that I look forward to focusing on when I do my podcast. The SmartBOARD Lessons podcast was interesting. The man and woman had similar humor and personalities which made it comedic to listen to. KidCast was about thoughts on podcasting and videocasting for children. I believe it was in this podcast that he spoke about how podcasting, as opposed to videocasting, is better for developing a child's listening skills. The MacBreak Weekly podcast was my favorite. The two gentlemen were very antimated and intriguing. Its very funny because I know very litte, almost nothing, about Mac computers but these guys kept me listening. I know that if I knew more about Mac computers I would have been even more interested. The This Week in Photography podcast was about various new tools and technology in photography. I look very forward to discovering more podcasts that really interest me that I can learn from; about podcasting and about the podcast's topic.

Comments4Kids: Mr. Lamshed's Class Blog

It's great that Mr. Lamshed's class was able to get two new pocket camcorders that they can use to communicate with us and other classes all over the world.
I look forward to following Mr. Lamshed's class blog and Mr. McLung's World blog.
It's also a great idea for teachers to present the information about health to the students instead of having strangers come into the classroom to speak about it.